Category Archives: Ponzi scheme

Right Wing or Left Wing – There Are Still No Free Lunches

Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Deficit spending, Ecological Economics, Economics, Environment, Federal Debt, First Law of Economics, Future generations, Global Change, Green New Deal, Herman Daly, Inequality, Laffer Curve, Modern Monetary Theory, Opinion, Ponzi scheme, Rent Seeking, Taxes, Trump
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Readers of Stirring the Pot know that I am deeply concerned about the issues of global climate change and inequality in the United States.  Climate change, or the larger issue of global change, is an existential threat to modern human civilization.  Inequality strikes at the very heart of the American ideal of “liberty and justice […]

Disdain for the Future

Biodiversity, Carbon Dioxide, Climate Change, Deficit spending, Economics, Environment, Future generations, Gas Tax, Global Change, Gratitude, Inequality, Infrastructure, Intergenerational Bargains, Maine, Nature, Opinion, Ponzi scheme, Presentism, Susan Collins, Taxes
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I first encountered the idea that the future was something one could study in 1971 from historian Roger Howell Jr.  In one way or another, thinking about the future informed much that I have written about since, including here in Stirring the Pot. In my way of thinking about the future, I believe there should […]

Is the U.S. Economy One Big Ponzi Scheme?

Deficit spending, Degrowth, Economics, Federal Debt, Future generations, Growth, Inequality, Justice, Opinion, Ponzi scheme, Taxes
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When I was teaching, I used to joke with students that my classes were particularly demanding because I wanted to be sure they would succeed in the real world so that they could pay for my Social Security checks.  Economists are supposed to believe that self interest is the dominant human motivator. I was only […]